Hiring Gets Streamlined

2011’s Best of the Best awards honored Horizon Bay Retirement Living’s innovative Job App Network as a Program to Spotlight in the Human Resources & Staff Development category. Learn how Horizon Bay streamlined their processes to increase hiring effectiveness and increase retention in the first installment of ALFA’s new series examining 2011 winners and programs to watch.

Horizon Bay Retirement Living has a new cure for its hiring headaches.

JobApp is a multilingual job application process that allows users to apply for a job at any time through the Internet, by telephone, or both. Not only is the dual approach more convenient for applicants, it also is structured to provide a seamless, paperless process for the employer. “We know that not everyone has access to the Internet, but we know everyone has access to a telephone,” says Khadeeja Morse, vice president of human resources. “You can even start the application process in one and move to the other.”

Horizon Bay’s version of JobApp has been customized to rate all applicants on a five-star scale that reflects Horizon Bay’s core requirements. It also conducts background checks and validates certifications. “You’re never wasting time with candidates who are not qualified,” says Morse.

Horizon Bay has found JobApp to be a tremendous help in the current economy, given that any job opening can generate a tremendous response. Instead of having to sift through mountains of paper applications, Horizon Bay managers can access a ready pipeline of qualified candidates on the database. Once hired, a job candidate’s application is automatically uploaded into the payroll system, ensuring smoother compliance with state and federal requirements and negating the need for duplicate paperwork or virtually any paperwork at all. Horizon Bay estimates that more than 28,400 pieces of paper were saved in the first eight months.

The centralized oversight of decentralized hiring also means that Horizon Bay can track hiring patterns among all its communities, indicating where the process could be made more effective. Managers can track such metrics as applicant flow, hiring effectiveness, and hiring results at a glance. In addition, the system tracks sources for each hire and even the ZIP codes that are most effective for filling positions at each location.

Based on a study of 15,135 new hires at Horizon Bay communities, it was determined that applicants who scored the highest rating during the screening process would be 62 percent less likely to leave within 30 days than other hires. So far, qualitative evidence from JobApp has been consistent with that expectation.

JobApp was rolled out in three communities early last year and has since been expanded to 94 communities.